Wildlife officials announce new plan to save black-footed ferrets

Billings, Mont. • Snatched from the brink of extinction more than 30 years ago, black-footed ferrets have struggled to maintain their toehold across the Great Plains as disease and agriculture have taken a heavy toll.

Now a new recovery plan, released Monday by federal wildlife officials, aims to bolster populations of the highly endangered carnivores on a half-million acres in 12 states.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plan would reintroduce ferrets in new areas while officials work more closely with private landowners to avoid a political backlash from agricultural interests.

If the effort works, black-tailed ferret numbers could grow to 3,000 animals in coming years, versus about 500 in the wild now, said the federal government's ferret recovery coordinator, Peter Gober.

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The failure of some prior reintroductions underscores that success is not guaranteed.

"We'd like to scatter those populations across as many of those 12 states as we can," Gober said. "The best way to work with people is to work with them voluntarily."

Key to the plan is the preservation of prairie dog colonies that ferrets depend on for survival. Many farmers and ranchers regard prairie dogs as a nuisance because they strip grass from grazing lands, both for the prairie dogs to eat and so they can keep a better eye out for predators.

Black-footed ferrets were once found across a range that stretched from Texas to the Canadian border. It also included Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming. Widespread poisoning of prairie dogs and the conversion of land for grazing wiped out most of the animals.

In 1981, after scientists had written off the species as extinct, a solitary enclave was found near Meeteetse, Wyo.